Online florist to pay investors in flowers
DELIVERY service Freddie’s Flowers is launching a mini-bond paying returns of up to 7.5 per cent as it embarks on a major expansion.
The firm, founded by Freddie Garland six years ago, has blossomed during l ockdown and now has 100,000 customers across the UK.
In a bid to double in size, Garland is l aunching a Flower Bond – essentially a four-year loan to the company that pays a fixed return in either cash or flowers.
Investors will receive either 5 per cent in cash, paid twice a year, or regular boxes of flowers worth the equivalent of 7.5 per cent of their investment.
A £5,000 investment would return £800 in cash, after tax, over four years, or £1,200 worth of flower credits. The bonds are eligible to be held i n self-invested personal pensions (Sipps). The minimum investment is £2,500 for four years – at which point investors should get their capital back.
Mini-bonds are deemed high-risk investments because i nvestors’ money is not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. That means you could lose all your capital if the company went bust before the end of the bond’s term.
Similar schemes have been run by Hotel Chocolat and the Craft Gin Club which gave investors the options of returns in chocolate or gin.